Archive for the ‘*Me, myself and I*’ Category

On the Physical Discipline of Children

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The physical or corporal punishment of children is extremely unacceptable in many western cultures today.

In Australia, a mother who warned her daughter three times before smacking her, found herself on assault charge.  The child was not physically harmed, but an adult decided it was abuse and reported the discipline to the police, who determined that under current Australian law, it was assault.  Remember - the child was not physically harmed.

Around 90% of Australians were against the authorities for implementing such charges against the mother, yet the law is the law.

In New Zealand, where authorities made smacking and so on unlawful, the will of the people later prevailed and the laws after some years were renounced, allowing parents to once again punish their children.  One of the tabloids claimed that in New Zealand, the renounced laws actually caused harm to the social integration of children into society.

I remember in my university days, reading a book written by Dr. A.H.Chapman, Management of emotional problems of children and adolescents, 2nd edition, 1974, his famous words were : Love, Limitations and Let them grow up.

In this book, the psychiatrist ( who was formerly an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Kansas School of Medicine),  firmly believed that hitting a child hard ten times on the bare buttocks with a stiff slipper or hairbrush was both safe and effective to control undesirable child behavior. You would expect to spank your child about 2 to 3 times a week to 1 every several months.  This was written only 32 years ago.

I recall reading elsewhere, that if the parent used a wooden spoon and hit too hard the spoon would just break, and if by some chance a bruise was left, it was just a warning to the parent that they had hit too hard.

Use a spoon now, and it may well be classed as hitting a child with a weapon. Leave a bruise and you are investigated for child abuse, and your record will likely confirm that you abused your child.

So where am I heading with all this?

Well, it’s an historical look at discipline.

Why have the laws changed? Why are children again being seen as miniature adults, with the rights of adults?

If we look at Australia, it was once said around the 1940’s or 50’s that child abuse basically didn’t exist.  But people saw things, people heard things, and their were child victims.

So, how has this changed so markedly over 59 to 69 years, with child abuse stats climbing through the roof.

I think there is a legal aspect, how can you protect an abused child, if parents can smack? What type of smacking leads to abused children? How can the law say one child being smacked is lawful, while another parent doing the smacking is unlawful.  So, government, being the “I have to be seen to be doing something” beast that it is, comes to outlaw smacking.

But when the physical discipline of a child isn’t allowed, how does a parent contain bad behavior - well, up to now, the preferred option was medical intervention of some sort, the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and then the prescription of drugs, such as ritalin, to control the child.  Only trouble that they have found is that such behavior modifying drugs also can cause anything from schizophrenia to sleepiness.

Yes the use of child modifying behavior drugs has soared in Australia in recent years. But drugging your child is an acceptable form of child abuse, if you have a doctor on side.

So the hand or spoon, has been replaced by the drug in quite a few cases.

On the other side of things, when I take my child to school, I see that children are also very easily afraid now a days.  One child broke down crying, because someone had left a hypodermic needle out the front of the school.  Are we breeding children to be afraid?

The reason why that bothers me, is that under the anti-terrorism laws, the very real rights that the Magna Carta was the symbol of, were taken from us.

So we are now living in a time when human rights have been significantly turned back by hundreds of years, and by the will of the government, we are now breeding children who may well be unsuited to fighting oppression.

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Follow up on the end of supermarket plastic bags in South Australia

Monday, October 26th, 2009

It’s now several months since supermarkets stopped providing free plastic bags for groceries in South Australia.

Originally being against the supermarket ban, where do i stand now?

The end of supermarket bags - the good

1.. Having your own bags means that you have stronger and more durable bags - meaning they don’t disintegrate before you get to the car.

2.. Being larger with a firmer base and rectangular shape makes it easier to use less bags and pack them into the car or van more easily.

The end of supermarket bags - the bad:

1… The supermarkets made thousands in profits from selling people  the bags - you had to pay for them, and the supermarkets made yet another profit from you.

2… Staff tend to over stuff the bags, sometimes so heavy it obviously becomes an occupational health and safety issue when you try to carry them or lift them.

3… When you forget to take your heavy duty supermarket bags with you, you pay 15 cents for a paper or strong plastic bag - the latter of course being more dangerous to the environment than the free ones ever were.

4… Apart from buying the bags, you also have to buy the rubbish bin liners that most of us used the old free supermarket bags for.  So the supermarkets are selling record numbers of rubbish bin liners, many of which look identical to the old supermarket bags, just a bit stronger and more colorful - cant see how this is helping the environment.

5… The strong sturdy bags we pay about $1 for, are made of plastic by the way, strong plastic bags that don’t break down.  Except I’ve found one or two  splitting at the seams, one of the zips on one of the cold goods carry bags has broken, paid about $3 to $5 for it.

6…   Buy more than your bags will carry, and you are forced to buy more bags, and store more bags.  Find a lot of good specials?  Great, but then the supermarket reaps more out of you when you have to turn round and buy more bags to carry your specials in.

7… Cleanliness - yep with the disposable plastic bags this wasn’t really much of an issue, but with people using their own bags, their uncleanliness becomes transferred to the supermarket people who pack the bags, and who then touch your groceries and your bags.  Occupational health safety issue that.

Conclusion:

Overall, my finding is quite negative, as you can see.  Bags are costly, less environmentally friendly, and you end up having to buy plastic bags to line your rubbish bins. Forget to take your main bags, rather frequently actually, and you have to buy more main ones or pay for cheaper ones.

An environmental nightmare with plastics that wont easily break down, consumers pay more to go shopping, supermarkets reap a a great profit and no longer provide the free service saving them money as well.

As the plastic bags are thrown away, an environmental disaster may get unleashed.  Sooner or later, those cheap 15 cent bags and the broken heavy duty bags are going to find their way to the oceans.

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Sexting

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Sexting is a new use for existing  technology. Sexting is defined as people taking photos or videos of themselves either naked or in varoius stages of undress, and then electronically sending them to someone else, typically by mobile phones. Sexting, the word, is derived from “sex” and from “texting”

Sexting has become infamous at the moment, as the people who are often sexting, are the younger teenagers. Sexting has also become infamous, as once the photos or videos are sent, the receiver can then resend them to whoever they wish, including the parents and friends of the partner, should the relationship sour.

Back to basics:  Sexting primarily involves nudity, not sex, so it should have been referred to as nuding or some such, but I guess the reciever of the sexting may use it for sexual gratification, which then makes the word sexting somewhat spot on.

So there are two sides then - the sexting sender, and the sexting receiver.

The Sexting Sender

By sending nude or semi nude photos of themselves, what can I say:

Is nudity or seminudity wrong?

Nudity is fine.  Most modern societies allow nudists and nudism in specific places, like nudist beaches and camps and in the home. Also, artists are allowed to paint nudes and pay adults, teenagers and children to pose nude while they paint them, and then to have the paintings hang in art galleries.  Initially when the child pornography laws came into being, the art galleries were under threat for displaying such paintings and photos, and at least one photographer - who was later cleared - went to court over his nude photography of young teenage girls. Now, photographers and painters can continue painting and taking photos of nude people of any age, and getting them published, put on display, and art galleries don’t have to worry anywhere near as much.

The bible clearly states that God prefers us nude as well, and that our Heavenly Father objects to people censoring people for their nudity. Just read about King David - he went running and jumping and dancing in a victory parade totally naked - that was in front of everyone - babies, children, teenagers, adults. When his wife censored him, the Heavenly father rebuked her.  In the Garden of Eden, God was happy with us naked - if he wanted us to wear clothes, he would have clothed us at the start.

So, nudity is not the issue per se, and interestingly, neither is the age , as such, of the sexting sender.

So, what is the problem with sexting here?

This is a real hard issue of sexting to hammer down.

What’s the difference between sexting a photo of oneself as a young teenager, to having a photographer take a photo and hang it in an art gallery? Clearly the latter has a much much wider audience and over a time frame that could run several life times.

From working with hemorrhoid questions for so long, I guess sexting comes down to why can a doctor put a glove on and do a cervical exam of a young child or teenager, and not get charged with sexual assault?  If anyone else were to do this to a young teenager or child, it is sexual assault. So we can sort of put the photographer in a similar type boat I suppose.

Likewise, in a family where nudism is accepted, taking nude photos of ones own family members is by and large OK.  Even as a care and protection psychologist, the training to become one involved this very scenario, but with the difference that other families children were photograhped nude while playing games with the nudist kids, that was considered OK, but if the photos were taken and nudism wasn’t the normal routine of things, then there were possible sexual abuse issues to deal with.

Putting all this black, white and grey to one side, I think the real issue with sexting, is that, with young teenagers,  it is done outside parental control (unless you are a parent practising nudity, parents wouldn’t allow their child sexting rights so to speak), and parental control is vital to protecting children and teenagers from themselves. Children and teenagers don’t often look or understand the longer term consequences of their actions.  How the receiver may use their photos or videos, become a source of embarrassment and even black mail when they become older. Understanding how it may affect their relationships in school, with everyone else seeing and commenting on the photos, including the teachers … That’s the real key, I think, to understanding why sexting is so dangerous to young teenagers in particular.

Yes, they are in essence the victim of their own action. AND yes, I believe they are victims.

SEXTING RECEIVERS

Are sexting receivers criminals?

Anyone can be sent anything, so there fore, as it is outside their control, you cant really punish them for the sexting messages they receive.  Also,  most sexting receivers will be younger teenagers themselves, and just as likely to be immature and naive in how they spread the photos and videos around once they get them, so punishing and or preventing people for distributing such material becomes awkward. Again the real issue is the lack of parental control - a young teenager is highly unlikely to go to their parents and show them the sextings. 

Are the sexting receivers victims?

An interesting question.  In a scoiety where nudism isn’t largely practised, then, yes, the sexting receiver can become a victim and maybe suffer distortion in their perspective of normal versus abnormal behavior and expectations of a nude and or sexual nature. It could also generate anxiety, perhaps even an anxiety disorder, as the the expectation of reciprocating sexting photos and videos may be present.  Teenagers are well know for being particularly self conscious of their bodies and how they look.

What if it is an adult who is sexting or receiving sexting?

With other adults, it will be subject to the relevant laws I would think.  I imagine grey areas would exist where nudism of the child and adult typically occur.  Let’s face it though, if children are involved, this becomes very much a concern as there could be predator or pornographer aspects to it, but not necessarily.

Sexting in Conclusion

The critical aspect to sexting is that parental control is totally absent, that sexting can occur anywhere at anytime - in a toilet, in a bath, at school - anywhere where a mobile phone with a camera goes, sexting can go.  Sexting has some unique and potentially devastating consequences to both the sexting sender and sexting receiver.

To go a bit beyond a straight out conclusion, I feel it necessary to add, that the only way to really deal with this issue is to  get parental supervision tied into it in some way, to stop the kids from having access to the camera facility on the mobile phones and or from receiving photos or videos,  such as like a  lock out feature that a parent can disable or enable.

However, some teenagers may appear totally trustworthy, have the camera enabled, and then go behind the parent’s back.

Nothing is fool proof , sexting is here, and I cant see it being totally controlled.

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What our ancestors show us - the overwhelming importance of family

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

In todays world, it can become quite confusing.  Morality is now a fine thread which is quickly defined and rearranged by individuals, often to suit their own ends, hence a sexual abuser can sometimes pervert their thinking to believe that “I was only teaching them in the act of sex”.

The bible too speaks of family and notes how even unbelievers adore and cherish their families, giving to family members and friends, but no other, and in so doing the bible makes comment on how what virtue is that for a follower of Christ - meaning, there is no greatness in looking after family and friends that you love and like and know, as the expectation of reciprocal looking after is ever present - rather the greatness comes from giving to others without expectation of return of any kind.

Yet, we see, family is vital - to both nonbelievers and believers.

For those of us in the Western world, the beliefs are clouded by words such as honor, duty, law, abuse …

A parent is encouraged to give up a son or daughter if they commit a crime or are called up for war, likewise a child is expected to rat out a parent if things go amiss in the family (not talking about child abuse, or abuse as such of one family member by another).

Things were not always so though.  If you look back through Scotlands history, there is a strong thread - even within the kingly lines -that ones promises and agreements with others were only to be kept when it inflicted no hardship upon family and those who depended on you.  Treaties were frequently made and broken to protect families and underlings from the English and so on.

(An interesting thread to this bit on Scotland, is that the Scottish Kings paid the Catholic church - the guardians of morality and spirituality - on condition that the priests and other of the Catholic robes to not sexually abuse Scottish parishoners, which had become quite rampant.  I transgress, but you would think after all these centuries, the church would have got it’s act right.  Anyway…)

You can see the difference clearly - now we are expected to uphold laws and governments, even if it means betraying family - yet it is the family and friends of the family that buffer the individual from the world that would take everything and give nothing back.  Laws, governments, rules .. these are constantly being changed and are transitory at best, and an act of oppression at worst.

Fact is, things do go amiss, and often authorities just react, place pressure on individuals, bad mouth them (report them) for supposedly very bad crimes, yet then nothing changes nothing happens.  The family is just left bewildered and in anguish, generating more stress.

To give an example that has upset me considerably.  I am still not allowed to comment too clearly about the events, I may not even have the facts myself, as the ‘criminal’ hasn’t been tried, so I will alter details, but the basis of understanding will remain the same, and is also a mix of another case I am aware.

The mother or father is reported by someone as a potential threat to their child.  The authorities react by investigating and interviewing the members of the family.  What does this do, it places considerable stress on the family - the uncertainty of future is made transparent, family members are expected to rat each other out.. Now, everthything settles - the memory remains - but things settle down, then the same person makes another complaint.  The authorities get involved again, putting the entire family through the ringer again.  This could keep going on and on and on.  For example, if one yells, it could be considered an act of domestic violence today, a few years back it was considered to be within the bounds of normal human interaction between husband and wife - see the law change - now a child hears the yelling, that becomes, by law, an act of child abuse.

That’s how easy it is to end up on the wrong side.  What’s more, you don’t even have to do anything wrong.  It could be your ex claiming they heard or saw something.

Now what does all this complaining and investigating do, it stresses people out no end, then when something does happen that breaks the camels back, a child or spouse or friend may be abused or killed, but the stress was put there much earlier - in essence the authorities have become the instrument of abuse - but he person who breaks down and does the crime, is the one that takes the blame.

Interesting that.  When you make laws too tight, you make everyone law breakers.

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On the construction of rage

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Rage is an interesting and often overlooked facet of human emotion.

Simply put,  rage is an underlying anger,  that lurks below the facade of civility that we all portray to the world.

A  child who has been abused, although compliant and nice on the outside, may harbor a devastating rage - yet it is frequently overlooked.

An adult who feels he or she is being taken advantage of, may also have a great deal of rage, held in place by the illusional facade.

So what happens when the facade of civilization is broken?  The rage flows out like an erupting Versuvias, taking everyone aback and off guard.

The person becomes engulfed in the outflow of unbridled anger.

But who is the victim?  Who is the perpetrator?

It is easy to point the finger at the adult showing the rage, making comments about how they should have dealt with their emotions better - how many of us hear such shallow comments about others? Many of course - a father who snaps and throws the child, is clearly blamed, but why was the rage there?  Who is responsible for putting the rage there in that person?

Yes, maybe it was another person, but Emile Durkheim, the father of sociology, had insight into many things.  He talked of how societies age - the more a society ages, the more laws that are generated.  In the end, a simple crossing of the road may one day lead to long term imprisonment, and be considered one of the foulest of crimes, with the end result being revolution against the government or dictator, as the people reach a point where they can no longer endure the hardship of law.

This is what we are seeing now, the extension of law to control behavior to a level unheard of before. A 14 year old can legally have sex with a 13 year old or a 12 year old, and law permits it on the basis it is experimentation, up the age level to one partner being 17, and it becomes an act of pedophilia.  My mother was married when she was 16 years old, now that marriage would be seen as an act of disgust and reviled.

On top of the tightening and ever expanding of laws to outlaw more human behaviors, we also have a dependency on supermarket chains and the like that continually rip the average bloke off.  For example, in one state, all plastic bags that don’t carry the company logo, like the ones you find in supermarkets, are to be totally banned.  Needless to say, there has been a sudden increase in bags with out logos, that means the companies will no longer provide them - An interesting manipulation of profiteering. 60% of the people, the majority, don’t approve of the law to be enacted, but it’s being enacted against the will of the people, as it may save a dolphins life. Most of us reuse those supermarket bags as garbage tidy liners, food carriers and so on, so now we have to go out and buy plastic bags for the job, making the supermarkets even richer.  If that weren’t enough, there is no offer of the free brown paper bags that supermarkets used before, now it’s you to pay for the brown bags and or buy the stronger shopping bags, which is really making the supermarkets a nice gift.

To top it off, some supermarkets then stopped carrying the plastic bags before the law was enacted, but they don’t tell you that before you enter the shop, they tell you that after you do the shopping, and say, do you want to buy some bags! I calmly told the operator that the law has not been enacted and they had no right to try selling me bags to carry the groceries in.  He then packed all my groceries into one box, enough to say that even before it was properly positioned in the trolley, the bottom of the flimsy box gave way, issuing the contents over the bottom of my trolley.  So I took 4 boxes to pack the same amount of groceries.  He packed one of them.  When I got home, guess what, there were the bananas underneath the apples and ice creams that he had packed…

We all know these chain stores make massive amounts of money out us.  We get a paper called the Weekly Times sometimes, it’s a farmer’s newspaper.  We found that one egg grower got about 55 cents in postage stamps for around 64 dozen eggs - that same supermarket that paid him then went on to sell those eggs for around $2 a dozen.

There is also another law of human behavior so to speak, Carl Gustav Jung, about a century back, one of the fathers of modern psychology and psychiatry, commented on how we become the thing we hate the most, that we are all capable of the most horrendious crimes and the greatest acts of sacrifice.  This is where the facade of civilized behavior becomes real interesting.

A policeman or policewoman who uses excessive force, or refuses to deliver proper aid to someone, or who lies to get the result they want, has either been unfit to start with, or become corrupted by their zealousness to do good.  People who protect the abused of a society, also often become the perpetrators of abuse in many hidden ways.

Of course, with that happening also, and mixing that power abuse with increasing societal laws, creates a strong basis for the generation of rage.

But society desires to have perpetrator and victim clearly identified, clouds the real issues, that continue to mould the degeneration and eventual overthrow of society.

I will rant more about this at another time.  As mixed up as the above may seem, if you read it well enough, you can see what I am getting at.

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Life exists beyond

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Yes, as much as I love my hemorrhoids /hemroids /piles treatment site and write for it, the internet is a voice that can reach far further than a placard or a soap box, and I have things bubbling inside, just wanting to get out and breathe the air.

Some of my posts may be about hemroids, but basically they are about me and my thoughts.

So, fingers crossed, lets hope this blog posting stuff finally works.

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